


Unrealistic Idealism

by swanetime



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M, a little angsty eventually, slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:42:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25492540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swanetime/pseuds/swanetime
Summary: "never doubt that a small group of thoughtful individuals can change the world."///"Because, I think I like you a lot more than I let on." he whispered to her with the excited smile of a school boy.Diana tried to hide the small smile that erupted on her face by looking down at her shoes. Josh placed his hand gently under her chin, forcing her to look at him."What makes you think that I feel the same way?" she said with an unconvincing crease of her eyebrows and a blush that covered her cheeks betraying her opposing words.Josh kept looking at her, his eyes filled with disbelief."Fine. I think you're right." she conceded quietly.///{josh lyman x original female character}
Relationships: Josh Lyman/Original Female Character
Kudos: 5





	Unrealistic Idealism

A sharp beeping sound interrupted Diana Esperanza's deep sleep. She jolted, knocking the papers laying on her chest into disarray across her office and causing her to roll off the small couch onto the floor. She had slept in her office the previous night trying to catch up on the work she couldn't finish due to the distractions of Josh's unfortunate morning show appearance.

The young woman rolled herself off the floor desperately grasping for her incessant beeping of her pager. Picking it up off her desk she read the message: POTUS in a bicycle accident.

"Are you kidding me?" she groaned.

Bustling around her office she put on a fresh blazer she kept on her coat rack for the nights she slept in her office. She tried to smooth out her hair as best as she could before knocking on the door of the office next to hers.

Josh Lyman groggily looked up from his desk to see Diana looking over at him with contempt from the door conjoining their offices. He had clearly slept on his desk the previous night, but Diana was in no place to judge.

"Hey idiot. Did you see?" she asked, holding up the pager.

"Yeah and you know I'm still your boss right?"

"That doesn't make you any less of an idiot." she replied.

The sounds of the world waking up started to fill the bullpen with the early morning sun streaming in through Josh's windows, illuminating him in the soft glow.

"Do you think you can handle the Cuba situation?" Josh asked her.

She rolled her eyes. "Lyman, I'm very good at my job, just because my parents came in a similar situation does not mean I can't handle this. Besides, the president rode his bike into a tree and you could get fired any minute so there's other things to worry about."

"Oh, it would make you so happy if I got fired."

"Yeah, but according to Leo, that's not a good enough reason to fire you."

"Ha ha very funny."

She gave him a big, sarcastic smile before leaving his office to answer the non stop ringing of her phone in order to start her day.

Leo walked into her office from the main hallway to be briefed on the situation in Cuba: "How many Cubans, exactly, have crammed themselves into these fishing boats?"

"We don't actually know at the moment." Diana replied, walking alongside Leo into Josh's office. Josh got off the phone adding: "It's important to understand, Leo, that by and large, these aren't fishing boats. You hear fishing boats, you conjure an image of -- well, of a boat, first of all. What the Cubans are on would charitably be described as rafts." He walked out from behind his desk past Leo and Diana into the bullpen area continuing to talk as he did so. "Okay? They're making the hop from Havana to Miami in fruit baskets, basically. Let's just be clear on that."

"We are." Leo said with a small amount of annoyance at Josh's unnecessary explanation.

"Donna's desk, if it could float, would be looking good to them right now."

"Lyman, we get it, shut up." Diana said, tired of hearing the Deputy Chief of Staff explain the state of the fishing "boats".

Josh turned to her before stating: "You know, I still don't think you're getting this whole I'm your boss thing."

She just stuck out her tongue before Leo interrupted their never ending bickering: "What time, exactly, did they leave?"

"We don't know."

"Do we know when they get here?"

"Absolutely not. That would be reasonable information to have Leo." Diana answered.

"True or False: If I were to stand on high ground in Key West with a good pair of binoculars, I would be as informed as I am right now."

"That's true." Josh answered sheepishly.

"The intelligence budget is well spent, isn't it?" Leo said sarcastically.

All three of them began to walk through the halls of the West Wing with Josh and Diana trailing behind Leo as they continued their conversation.

"Tell them to send the Coast Guard, Leo." Josh suggested.

"The Coast Guard won't--"

"I understand!" he yelled adamantly. "But, they're never going to make it to our territorial waters."

"We can't just send in the Coast Guard, Lyman."

"What if the DA suspected they had drugs?"

"No!" she yelled at him.

"Does the DA suspect they have drugs?" Leo asked.

"We could make a phone call."  
  


Leo and Diana both yelled at him at the same time: "No!"

"Josh!"

"If the D.A. or Navy Intel thought the Cubans were bringing in drugs, wouldn't we have to go out there and search those rafts with, you know, guns and blankets?" he asked as they walked through the main lobby.

"Sure, but then it's a whole thing. We don't need this to be a whole thing." Diana reasoned.

Leo looked back at Josh before telling him: "You look like hell. You know that, don't you?"

Diana let out a small laugh at the expense of her idiotic boss allowing Leo's attention to swing to her own tired figure. "So do you." The smile immediately dropped from her face while Josh stuck his tongue out childishly at the suddenly deflated woman, desperately trying to flatten out her wrinkled shirt and brush out her tangled hair.

Turning his attention back to Leo, Josh asked: "Did he say anything?"

"Did he say anything?" Leo proclaimed incredulously. "The president is pissed as hell at you, Josh. And so am I."

As they walked through the Roosevelt Room, Leo lectured Josh on bipartisan efforts extending to the Christian right: "You gotta work with these people. And where the hell do you get off strutting your--"

"I know."

"Al Caldwell's a good man."

At this point, Diana was only continuing to follow the two in hopes of seeing Josh embarrassed further. While she disliked Mary Marsh, she knew Josh never should have yelled at her on national television. She hadn't been focused on Leo's lecture due to her own exhausted thoughts flying around her head, but she heard the tail end of their conversation as they walked through the communications bullpen.

"We need Al Caldwell. We want Al Caldwell. We do not need John Van Dyke. And we do not need Mary Marsh." Josh argued adamantly.

"And I think there shouldn't be instant replay in football, but that' s not my call, now, is it?" Leo quipped.

Josh and Diana stopped at the entrance to the communications bullpen allowing Leo to go on to his own business, but not before Josh yelled after him: "I was right, though."

She turned to him ready to argue her point, but before she could open her mouth, Josh managed to interrupt her thoughts.

"You agree with Leo, don't you? You think that we have to be polite to get what we want."

"Okay, Lyman, first of all, that should be true in most lines of work, not just this one. Also, don't put words in my mouth, I think you're right to some extent, but you can't just go insulting Mary Marsh on live television because then we lose people like Al Caldwell who we do actually need."

They began to walk back through the communications bullpen to their offices to grab their memos for the senior staff meeting arguing the whole way there.

"If people like Mary Marsh get to control the outcome of our administration, then that's pretty sad." Josh argued.

"That may be true, but you still shouldn't have yelled at her!" Diana's frustration with her boss truly shining through.

They walked back to Leo's office making it there just in time for Sam to start briefing Leo on Cuba.

"Somewhere between 1200 and 2000 Cubans began embarking from a fishing village 30 miles South of Havana." Sam told the Chief of Staff.

"Where are they headed?"

"Vegas." Josh quipped, earning himself a slap on the back of the head from Diana.

"Miami." Sam corrected. "Though, it's not clear how sophisticated their navigation system is."

"Are you kidding me, Sam?" Diana blurted, settling in next to her good friend, leaning on the additional table in Leo's office. "Leo and I have already gotten the fruit basket lecture from Josh and I really don't want to hear it again."

"Exactly, that way is North is pretty--"

"Josh." CJ interrupted.

"CJ, if one of these guys could throw a split fingered fastball, we'd send in the USS Eisenhower."

"That's not entirely true."

"Oh, for God's sake. Forget about the journey. Okay? The voyage is not our problem." Toby asserted.

"What's our problem?"  
  


"What to do when the Nina, the Pinta, and the Get-Me-The-Hell-Outta-Here hit Miami."

"Oh come on, Toby!" Diana protested.

"Sam?" Leo asked, trying to ignore the bickering between the other staff members.

"Can't send them back. They'll go to jail, if they're lucky."

"We'll get whacked in what? At least--"

"Three congressional districts. Dade county." Sam finished for Toby.

"Those seats are gone."

Diana rolled her eyes at the two communications staffers. Thinking about politics during situations that involved human lives is what got people to do the wrong thing.

"We really shouldn't be thinking about politics." Diana argued at the same time that Josh said: "Not to mention the fact that it's wrong."

A small, almost unnoticeable blush covered Diana's face as she said: "See, we're in agreement. That doesn't happen."

Josh nodded in agreement smirking at the red tint he noticed on her cheeks. He decided not to make fun of her for it because then people would know he was staring at Diana. Sam was arguing with Leo and Toby about keeping Josh and Diana briefed because his schedule was busy that day finishing: "I'm just saying, isn't this more of a military thing?"

The room fell quiet at the suggestion, Diana turning to her crazy friend leaning in the doorway of Leo's office.

"Military?" Leo questioned.

"Yeah." he said earnestly.

Diana got up from the table to turn to face Sam thinking of all the ways she could call him an idiot.

"I'm sorry, do you think the United States is under attack?" Diana said, her tone dangerously angry.

"I'm not saying I don't like our chances."

"Mind-boggling to me that we ever won an election." Toby patronized.

"Pat Thomas wants to send the Coast Guard."

"Don't. It'll only cause panic." Diana advised.

"I agree with Josh. And I agree with CJ. And I agree with Sam. And I agree with Diana. And you know how that makes me crazy." Toby said continuing with: "They're running for their lives. You don't have to start a game of Red Rover with Castro. But you don't send in the National Guard. You send food and you send doctors."

Diana nodded aggressively in agreement.

"Sam, see that I.N.S. is working with the Red Cross and the Centers for Disease Control." Josh ordered.

Sam told them he had his CDC guy on the phone before Leo told him to leave to talk to him.

"Moving on. Let's talk about Josh."

A smile graced Diana's face. "I can't wait."

\---

Diana was back in her office avoiding calls from the press about Josh and her opinions on the situation in Cuba. Donna came in from Josh's office with a mug of coffee in her hands.

"What's this?" Diana asked her.

"Well, I brought Josh coffee because I felt bad, but I remembered I liked you better so I decided to bring you coffee."

Diana smiled at her shared assistant between Josh and herself before taking the mug out of her hands. "Of course you like me better. I _am_ better."

Yelling came from Josh's office between Toby and Josh, alarming the two women in the next door office.

"Should I check on them?" Donna asked her boss.

She shook her head in response, standing up to go into the office herself, knowing she probably wanted to be a part of that conversation.

"No!" Josh yelled in Toby's face as Diana opened the door between the two offices.

"Come to the meeting and be nice." Toby requested.

"Oh, you told him about the meeting?" Diana said, interjecting herself into the conversation.

"You knew?" Josh yelled at her.

"Yeah." she stated.

Josh turned back to Toby, deciding to focus on the bigger problem than Diana knowing before him.

"Al Caldwell is friends with bad people! I think he should say so for the common good. Screw politics! How about that?"

"You don't run social policy for this government. How 'bout that!" Toby yelled back at him.

"Toby!" he protested.

"I'm in charge of the message around here. It's my job to tell the President that the best thing he could do, from a PR standpoint, is to show you the door."

After a brief pause, he continued: "Come to the meeting. Be nice. Keep your job."

"I'll be there." he softly responded.

Diana shut the door to Josh's office as they started to talk about Mandy's arrival in DC, seeming to have made up for the fight they had just had.

\----

Sam Seaborn's office looked messier than normal. That was what Diana thought when she walked in to talk about Cuba, her organizational tendencies straining against her own self control to clean up the messy room.

The man himself was on the phone, scattering more papers into the abyss that was his desk. Diana waited patiently, leaning on the doorway, for Sam to get off the phone and talk to her. When he was finally off the phone, he acknowledged her with a nod immediately briefing her on what he just found out without a greeting.

"The National Weather Service says there's a storm system coming through the Gulf towards the South Florida area, right where the Cubans are." he told her.

"Well shit."

Sam looked at her with concern.

"Are you sure you can handle this?"

Rolling her eyes at him she said: "Of course I can. People need to stop asking me that. I just think we need to give them aid instead of military action."

Sam winced. "I'm sorry about that."

"Yeah, I know. Let's tell Leo."

They walked together out of his office to the Roosevelt room where Leo and Josh were dispersing with economists briefing him on the stocks. Sam and Diana walked in standing beside Josh across the table from Leo.

"There's a storm system moving into the South Florida area."

"See, with any luck the Cubans'll turn around and live to defect another day."

"Yeah, 'cause they're probably all tuned to the National Weather Service, but that's not what I'm here for." Josh told him.

"What's on your mind?"

"We gotta look at the whole field for a minute, 'cause I think we're about to get tagged."

"With regard to what?"

"Re-election."

Shocked by the suggestion, Leo stated: "Oh, we're not there."

"Don't let Lloyd Russell push us around on Medicare or medium range missiles."

Realization dawned on Diana as she remembered the murmurs of Toby and Josh's conversation about Mandy Hampton's gracious return to DC. She wished she would have known Lloyd Russell had hired the brilliant consultant, at this point of their presidency they needed a media consultant more and more everyday.

"You're taking Lloyd Russell too seriously."

"Have you seen his numbers recently, Leo?" Diana asked him.

"They're starting to get interesting." Sam finished for her.

"Hollywood likes him. He can raise money." Josh continued to argue.

Leo repeated: "We're not there yet."

Josh, being himself, persisted in his one-sided debate: "Thirty second hypothetical: You're Lloyd Russell, newly crowned prince of the White suburban woman, the upper middle class Black man and teacher's union. You're no friend to the sitting President. What do you do?"

"Put together an exploratory committee." Leo said, deciding to bite.

"And who do you get to run it?"

"At this point, Diana."

"I have a job, but thank you."

Josh shook himself out of the offended state he was in to continue to tell Leo about Lloyd Russell.

"Who do you get?" he repeated.

"Well, if I could get Mandy to leave 900,000 a year at Lennox-Chase, I'd get Mandy."

"You'd be smart."

"And," Diana added. "She happens to be in town; she just got in today."

"What is she doing?" Leo asked.

"Working for Lloyd Russell." Josh finished.

Leo paused for a moment before yelling to Margaret to get Lloyd Russell's office on the phone, walking quickly to his own office. Josh, Sam, and Diana stood in the doorway watching him leave before Sam asked Josh:

"Is that the same suit you wore yesterday?"

Josh looked down at the crumpled suit he had slept in before answering. "Yeah." After a brief pause, he asked. "You?"

"Yeah." Sam looked to Diana to see her uncharacteristically wrinkled shirt and pants. "What about you?" he asked.

Diana hoped nobody would notice, but she just sighed while nodding in shame. They all immediately took their leave going in their separate directions trying to avoid the questions that would have come.

\---

Donna was getting Josh to change into a shirt that was actually clean for the meeting with the Reverend and Mary Marsh while Diana put on deodorant and fluffed up her hair. Josh may not want to spruce himself up for the conservative right, but Diana wanted to give off the appearance that she didn't have to sleep in her office to get all her work done. The amount of care that she put into her job did not allow for a lot of time for herself which was exactly how she liked her life, however, that doesn't mean she wanted Mary Marsh of all people to know that.

She finished up just as Josh walked out of his office joining her in the hallway where they would meet up with CJ and Toby to go to the mural room of the White House.

As they walked through the hallway, CJ told Josh how Mary Marsh was going to act during the meeting.

"She's going to try to bait you, Josh, you understand what I'm saying?"

"Lloyd Russell, yeah that'll last." Josh said, clearly not listening to the press secretary.

"Are you listening to me?"

"They're going to try to bait me." he repeated back to her.

"They want you to say something arrogant."

"He doesn't need help saying something arrogant. Maybe he shouldn't talk at all." Diana suggested.

They reached the Mural Room, their countenances changing to ones of fake smiles and their greetings rang phony as they faced off with their political polar opposites. The two groups shook each other's hands before sitting down, with Diana between Josh and CJ on the sofa, trying to figure out how to amend the situation. Diana sat down between CJ and Josh on the sofa.

Toby started off the negotiations. "As you know, the President makes a usual Sunday morning radio address, and in a few weeks we've scheduled--"

"Ah, Toby, if I may interrupt for just a moment," Reverend Caldwell interjected. "the goals and spirit of Christian and Family oriented organizations, while embraced by a great and growing number of Americans, have been met with hostility and contempt by their Government. Now, yesterday morning, on the television program Capital Beat, that contempt was given a voice... and a face... and a name." He turned to look at Josh. "I'm referring, of course, to you sir."

"Yes, I know, and I'm glad you brought that up--"

"I was surprised at you, Josh. I always counted you as a friend." he told him.

"And I'm honored by that, Reverend. First, let me say that when I spoke on the program yesterday, I was not speaking for the President or this administration. That's important to know. Second, please allow me to apologize. My remarks were glib and insulting. I was going for the cheap laugh, and anybody willing to step up and debate ideas deserves better than a political punchline. Mary, I apologize." Josh genuinely apologized to Mary, even Diana was surprised at the sincerity in his voice.

She stared blankly at Josh before saying: "Good then." She turned to face Toby. "Let's deal."

Toby looked at her, confused at what the simple turning of her body implied. "I'm sorry?"

"What do we get?"

A look of blank panic and confusion appeared on Toby's face. "For what?"

"For insulting millions of Americans." Mary said, not missing a beat.

"An apology."

"Sunday morning radio address. Public morals. School prayer or pornography, take your pick."

"Excuse me?" Diana said something for the first time since the meeting has started. "Those are definitely two things everybody wants to hear about when they wake up on a Sunday morning."

"Well, pornography is on every street corner." Van Dyke reminded her.

"I've seen it." Toby quipped.

"Condoms in the school." Mary suggested.

"Oh, that's a problem?" she asked incredulously.

"We have a Surgeon General who says they dramatically reduce the risk of teen pregnancy and AIDS." Toby argued, his voice increasing in volume by the word.

"So does abstinence."

"Show the average American teenage male a condom and his mind will turn to thoughts of lust." Van Dyke contended.

"Yeah, I'm sure the teenage male wasn't thinking 'thoughts of lust' before the condoms were there." Diana mocked.

CJ scolded the woman for her mocking tone and her sarcastic comment.

"School prayer, pornography, condoms. What's it going to be?" Mary Marsh clearly was not going to go home without a deal, her tone indicating that a decision had to be made right then.

Toby tried to backtrack into a calmer discussion: "We're not prepared to make any sort of deal right now."

"Sure we are. Mary--" Josh started to say before the woman herself interrupted him.

"My read of the landscape is that you're cleaning out your desk before the end of business today, so I'd just as soon negotiate with Toby if it's all the same to you."

Diana interjected with a small giggle: "It's actually not all the same to me."

"Well, it's a good thing I wasn't talking to you."

If Diana Esperanza hated anything more than selfish and rude people, Mary Marsh might have had an easier time at the White House that day.

"Just because you heard some unconfirmed rumor that Josh will be getting fired for yelling at you on Capital Beat doesn't mean it's true; the only person that gets to decide if he keeps his job is the President of the United States. Also, he may have created an opportunity for you to get what you want, but you can't hold the leader of the free world hostage so that your message gets across just because Josh over here decided to be stupid on national television."

"Actually, I think that's exactly what I'm going to do, Diana."

Rev. Caldwell tried to reign in the woman. "Mary."

"Please allow me to work." she asked of the Reverend before turning back to Josh. "It was only a matter of time with you, Josh." He looked down trying to remain calm. "That New York sense of humor was just a--"

"Mary! There's no need--"

"Reverend, please! They think they're so much smarter. They think it's smart talk. But nobody else does."

"I'm actually from Connecticut, but that's neither here nor there. The point is, Mary--"

Toby decided to interject at this point. "She meant Jewish." After a brief pause, Toby continued: "When she said 'New York sense of humor', she was talking about you and me." Toby said to Josh.

"You know what, Toby, let's not even go there." Josh told him, sticking to CJ's earlier advice to not be baited.

Rev. Caldwell trying to keep a semblance of peace said: "There's been an apology. Let's move on."

"I'd like to discuss why we hear so much talk about the First Amendment coming out

of this building, but no talk at all about the First Commandment." Van Dyke tried to add.

Diana scoffed at the notion, but stayed quiet, knowing it was Toby's turn to argue.

"I don't like what I've just been accused of." Mary said indignantly.

"I'm afraid that's just tough, Mrs. Marsh."

Van Dyke, completely ignoring their conversation, continued with his own: "The First Commandment says 'Honor thy father'."

"No it doesn't." Toby corrected.

"Toby--" Josh tried to stop him from arguing, but Diana stopped him from saying anything further, placing her hand on his knee and murmuring to him: "Let him do this. He's right."

"No, if I'm gonna make you sit through this preposterous exercise, we're gonna get the names of the damn commandments right." Toby, at this point, was full on yelling.

"Okay, here we go." Mary challenged.

"'Honor thy Father' is the Third Commandment." bellowed Toby.

"Then what is the First Commandment?" Van Dyke asked back angrily.

A different voice sounded from the double doors leading to the area outside the Oval Office. "'I am the Lord your God. Thou shalt worship no other God before me.' Boy, those were the days, huh?"

The President of the United States appeared through the doors with a big smile on his face and a cane to help walk on his sprained ankle. Everybody in the room stood up upon his arrival and Diana hoped he could help to amend the predicament that they had yelled their way into.

Rev. Caldwell was the first to respond to his arrival: "Good afternoon, Mr. President."

"Al." the President greeted back before turning to CJ. "What do we got here, CJ?"

"Well, we got a lot of hot tempers, Mr. President." she answered.

The President turned to shake hands with Mary and John Van Dyke who introduced himself to him. Van Dyke took it upon himself to ask the President a question: "If our children can buy pornography on any street corner for five dollars, isn't that too high a price to pay for free speech?"

"No." Bartlet answered seriously.

"Really?"

"On the other hand, I do think that five dollars is too high a price to pay for pornography."

Diana smiled at the President's answer, his sense of humor always shining through even during moments of disagreement. CJ cut through the tension telling everybody to sit down to discuss further action, but the President had other ideas for the situation.

"No, let's not, CJ. These people won't be staying that long." he turned to Al saying: "Al, how many times have I asked you to denounce the practices of a fringe group that calls itself The Lambs of God?"

"Sir, that's not up to me."

"Crap. It is up to you, Al. You, know, my wife, Abbey, she never wants me to do anything while I'm upset. Twenty eight years ago, I came home from a very bad day at the State House. I tell Abbey I'm going out for a drive. I get in the station wagon, and put it in reverse, and pull out of the garage full speed. Except I forgot to open the garage door."

Sam and Leo quietly entered the Mural Room as the President smiled at Josh who smiled back amused at his anecdote.

"Abbey told me to not drive while I was upset and she was right. She was right yesterday when she told me not to get on that damn bicycle while I was upset, but I did it anyway, and I guess I was just about as angry as I've ever been in my life. It seems my granddaughter, Annie, had given an interview in one of the teen magazines. And somewhere between movie stars and make-up tips, she talked about her feelings on a woman's right to choose. Now Annie, all of 12, has always been precocious, but she's got a good head on her shoulders and I like it when she uses it, so I couldn't understand it when her mother called me in tears yesterday. I said, 'Elizabeth, what's wrong?' She said, 'It's Annie.' Now I love my family and I've read my bible from cover to cover so I want you to tell me, from what part of the Holy Scripture do you suppose the Lambs of God drew their Divine inspiration when they sent my 12 year-old granddaughter a Raggedy Ann doll with a knife stuck through its throat?"

The three members of the religious group sighed and looked down at their shoes in shame deciding that the question was a rhetorical one.

"You'll denounce these people, Al. You'll do it publicly. And until you do, you can all get your fat asses out of my White House. CJ, show these people out."

"I believe we can find the door." Mary said quietly.

"Find it now." President Bartlet told her.

As they were walking out, the Reverend stopped to tell Leo that they would fix this. Leo only replied with: "See that you do."

The four staffers stood there for a moment, allowing the President's words to soak in before Josh's face broke out into a coy smile and said: "Okay, can I just say that, as it turned out, I was the calmest person in the room?"

"Way to stay cool." CJ said to Diana and Toby, sarcasm dripping from her words. They started to walk towards the Oval Office as Josh made fun of Toby and Diana's tempers.

"I thought you said we shouldn't yell at people like Mary Marsh." he said, trying to point out her own hypocrisy.

"I said you shouldn't yell at people like Mary Marsh on _live television_. That's where you get in trouble, idiot."

"I thought you were going to take a swing at her, Toby."

"She was calling us New York Jews, Josh."

They all entered the Oval Office, circling around the coffee table in between the two red and white striped sofas set up across from each other.

"Yeah, but being from Connecticut, I didn't mind so much." he quipped, earning a laugh from Toby. "You, CJ, on the other hand, were brilliant. I particularly liked the part where you said nothing at all."

"I'm sorry, Josh, I was distracted. All I could really think about was Lloyd Russell and your girlfriend." she fired back.

"Mandy and Lloyd Russell?" Sam questioned.

"I'll be putting an end to that." Josh answered unclearly, gaining a scoff from Diana.

The President watched the four of them from behind his desk before interrupting their conversation: "'Hello, Mr. President. Did you have a nice trip, sir? How's the ankle, sir?' Seems to me we've all been taking a little break. Thinking about our personal lives or thinking about keeping our jobs. Breaks are good. It's not a bad idea taking a break every now and then. I know how hard you all work."

Leo handed the President a note which he read as he talked to the group.

"There was this time that Annie came to me with this press clipping. Seems these theologians down in South America were very excited because this little girl from Chile had sliced open a tomato, and the inside flesh of this tomato had actually formed a perfect Rosary. The theologians commented that they thought this was a very impressive girl. Annie commented that she thought it was a very impressive tomato. I don't know what made me think of that."

As he was talking, he walked from behind his desk to lean on the front of his desk. He reopened the note, reading aloud from it: "Naval Intelligence reports approximately 1200 Cubans left Havana this morning. Approximately 700 turned back due to severe weather, some 350 are missing and presumed dead, 137 have been taken into custody in Miami and are seeking asylum."

Diana looked down gravely taking a moment to grieve the lost people in the ocean.

"With the clothes on their backs, they came through a storm. And the ones that didn't die want a better life. And they want it here. Talk about impressive. My point is this: Break's over."

Murmurs of "Thank you, Mr. President." echoed through the room as all of the staffers left. Diana walked back to her office deciding to organize the papers that had scattered throughout the room from the busy day and the night before. She normally kept her office in meticulous shape as she had systemized many colorful binders to help her keep the craziness of her job at bay.

Just as she was about to leave for the day, wanting to take a shower that her greasy hair desperately needed, Josh knocked on her door, stopping in for a last minute talk.

"Why did you yell at Mary Marsh?" he asked her curiously.

She smiled and leaned on the edge of her desk. "She deserved it."

"But you hate me." he tried to argue.

"Josh, that really doesn't mean Mary Marsh's stupid face didn't deserve what came to her. For someone that's entire identity revolves around 'family values' and _The Bible_ , she really doesn't know much about human decency."

He just nodded saying a quick goodbye as he closed the door, leaving her to her own devices for the night.


End file.
